largest, most populous European nation by 1815 a great world power because of its size and location controlled a huge multinational empire had immense natural resources disliked by W. Europe for its autocratic rule by czars feared by W. Europe for its goals to expand economically undeveloped rigid social class consisting of (landowning nobility), boyars a small, ineffectual middle class, and serfdom caused economy to remain backward

attempted liberal reforms, easing censorship / promoting education / possible freedom for serfs At Congress of Vienna in 1815, he joined conservatives instead At his death, the “Decembrist Revolt,” consisting of army officers, broke out, with a demand for a written constitution

Czar Nicholas I, playing a church organ, as he accused the Turks of mistreating Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire The Crimean War: The czar trampling on France with a Cossack dancing & pointing a dagger toward France

Cracked down on all dissenters, using secret police forces to spy on critics, banned all books with liberal ideas, exiled 150,000 liberals to Siberia Reinforced “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationalism” (Pan-Slavism – a movement to lead and protect all Slavs across Europe)

Came to throne during the Crimean War (Russia defeated by Britain and France when Russia tried to seize Ottoman lands along the Danube River): defeat led to reforms: emancipation for serfs > still too poor to buy own land > many moved to cities, helping to build Russian industry zemstvos (elected assemblies) made responsible for local matters, supporting some self-government trial by jury encouraged growth of industry

Members of the People’s Will are executed women left to study abroad, many will support liberal goals assassinated by a revolutionary terrorist group called the People’s Will Members of the People’s Will are executed

Increased power of secret police; restored strict censorship, exiled critics to Siberia Launched program called Russification – suppressing all cultures of non-Russian peoples within empire Especially increased persecution of Jews – forced them into ghettos; encouraged pogroms – official violent mob attacks Jews became refugees; many moved to the U.S. and still faced prejudice here

Focused on industrial development Built Trans-Siberian Railroad Industrialization brought urbanization - working conditions deplorable Socialists gained support from urban working class One humiliating defeat after another in the Russo-Japanese War (1904) brought crisis and dissent that led to “Bloody Sunday” of 1905 – a peaceful march on the czar’s Winter Palace that left hundreds massacred

October Manifesto is decreed by czar: agreed to call an elected national legislature called the Duma to decide national issues but dismissed it whenever its members criticized czarist policies Nicholas II of the Romanov dynasty is faced with a world war and simmering unrest by 1914